


Jensen the Magnificent

by Janice_Lester



Category: SPN RPF, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Dragons, M/M, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-31
Updated: 2012-10-31
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janice_Lester/pseuds/Janice_Lester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared finds what he thinks is a stray lizard on his way home from a club.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jensen the Magnificent

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a postage stamp for my first 2012 [](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile)[kink_bingo](http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) card, to hit the kinks "service", "confined/caged", "oral fixation", and "leather latex rubber". This is an AU in which Jensen is a shapeshifting dragon, and Jared's profession isn't specified. Somewhat schmoopy. Jared doesn't consent to occasionally being nipped. Beta'd by [](http://vee-dub.livejournal.com/profile)[vee_dub](http://vee-dub.livejournal.com/).

 

“Hi there, little fella. Are you doing okay?”

Jensen peers cautiously out from behind the garbage can at the huge shape blotting out the streetlight’s yellow glare. It’s a human, and a large one. He whips his tail out in warning, but in his present condition the snap of it is unimpressive. He can’t help his piteous whine. He’s flown an immense distance, and he’s _tired_ , and this place he’s landed is not at all hospitable with its hard streets and its evening chill.

“Hey, are you hungry? I think I’ve got—” the man rifles his pockets, comes up with a plasticy bag of something “—here. Gummy worms. Not great for you, but lots of yummy calories.” He eats one, makes _yum-yum_ noises as if Jensen is an infant. Then he holds out his hand, offering one. Jensen darts forward, seizes the morsel with a precise snap of his beak, and retreats before he can be grabbed.

He chews. The confection is sweet, definitely calorific, and Jensen begins to feel a little better. But also thirsty. He has no way to communicate this, of course, though he’s beginning to sense that if he _could_ make such a request, this human would be happy to grant it. Jensen’s kind are seldom wrong about such things, so he relaxes a little, doesn’t fight the instinctive trust.

“Listen,” says the man, just as if he knows Jensen can understand him, “I’m heading home now, and I’m going to take you with me, because I don’t think you’re very well and this doesn’t seem like a real lizard-friendly spot. I’ll take good care of you, and do my best to find out if you belong to someone, or if there’s some specific place you should be released when you’re better, or whatever. I’m going to pick you up now, okay? Please try not to bite my arms off.”

Jensen isn’t sure he believes the part about being released again—aren’t there stories about humans trying to take his kind for pets?—but he’s certain that here, now, this man means him no harm. So he steps proudly forward and allows the man to scoop him up.

“I’m Jared, by the way,” the man says, tucking Jensen carefully against his chest and rising to his considerable height.

“Jensen,” Jensen replies, but he’s pretty sure the man hears only a squawk. He keeps his wings closely furled around his back and belly, wonders how long their presence can possibly go unnoticed once they get somewhere with more light. Oh, well. There isn’t much he can really do about it right now. So he just squirms into a more comfortable position against the human, strangely comforted by the tanned animal-hide jacket he wears. It reminds him a little of soft springtime scales warm from the sun.

***

Jensen does not particularly enjoy the large glass box into which he is placed. It smells vaguely of sea salt and has a floor of multicoloured pebbles. It’s open up above, though, and although the sides are high Jensen’s pretty sure he could get out even without recourse to flight.

“Here you go,” Jared says brightly, setting down a dish of water and another of food.

Jensen falls immediately on the water, lapping eagerly. From the next dish, he smells meat—cold roasted beef, he thinks happily—along with fruit and dog biscuits, as if Jared is hedging his bets about what Jensen might eat.

“Oh, and you might like this,” Jared says, and flips a switch.

A heat lamp comes on in the far corner of the tank. Jensen chitters his pleasure, already anticipating a good bask to revitalise his inner fire. This captivity thing is working out splendidly so far.

“Okay, well, goodnight,” Jared says, and has to smother a yawn. “Seems like I’m all partied out,” he mumbles, apparently to himself, as he turns to walk off. “Guess I really am getting old…”

***

“Wow,” the vet says.

“Yeah, I think he’s deformed or something. He nips me if I try to touch him anywhere there, so I think maybe it hurts him?”

The vet looks at Jensen, raises his eyebrows as if to say _isn’t he the most overgrown idiot you’ve ever seen?_ and then snickers as if they’re sharing a joke.

Jensen releases a _snarksnark_ of laughter.

“What?” Jared demands, of Doctor Collins.

“Those aren’t any kind of deformity, Jared.” He bends lower, stage whispers to Jensen, “Think we should show him?”

Jensen nods. Collins backs up, waves a hand as if to say _be my guest._

Jensen deliberately puts his back to Jared, gets up on his hind legs, and pops out his wings. At full extension, they span almost a full yard, longer than his body and tail combined.

“Holy moly!”

Using his tail to steady him, Jensen turns carefully on his two legs until Jared can see him properly from the front. His wings have different colouring on the undersides, more subtle but with an opalescent effect Jensen likes to admire sometimes when he’s bored.

“You’re, like, a baby dragon!” Jared breathes.

Jensen clucks his tongue in outrage. He doesn’t mind being taken for younger than his one hundred and fifty-six years, but being mistaken for a _hatchling_ is completely unacceptable.

“Oh, no, he’s full grown,” Doctor Collins assures him.

 _Yeah, and don’t you forget it,_ Jensen thinks, but all he can say is “Hmpff,” so he says that.

“You know about dragons? I mean, there is _such a thing_ as dragons?”

“Oh, yes, indubitably. Though I _did_ almost get kicked out of veterinary school for saying so. But, as you can see, I was quite right. There isn’t much known about them, but I can assure you that this one seems healthy, if a little underweight and somewhat exhausted. I’ve been told that they migrate long distances, so I’m guessing he just flew in from somewhere far, far away.”

“Yeppo,” Jensen chirrups.

“So, he just needs some care and attention and lots of good wholesome food. I’m happy to take him on, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine, I kinda like the little guy.”

“That all right with you?” the doctor asks Jensen.

Jensen nods solemnly, turns and scampers across the table. At the last moment before disaster, he leaps, flaps his wings once, twice, and lands smoothly on Jared’s shoulders.

“Oomph,” Jared grunts.

Jensen digs a single claw into his shoulder to make clear just how careful he was being with that landing. The complaint is not repeated.

***

By their third day together, Jensen has succeeded in getting Jared to recognise and respond to his own name. He is working on further commands, such as ‘food’, ‘fresh water’, and ‘out’. He will call Jared, then delicately rattle his food dish, point at his water dish, or poke at the front wall of the tank while vocalising the relevant command. (It would not be necessary to teach Jared the concept of ‘out’, except that Jared—apparently triggered to do so by the revelation that Jensen can fly—has put a lid on the tank.)

Jared does much better at interpreting commands when Jensen is with him outside the tank. A quick nip to a handy limb quickly communicates Jensen’s displeasure, and Jared does extremely well at understanding the body language for _scratch me, oh, yes, therethereTHERE_ and _I’m cold, cuddle me_ , and _thank you for this most worthy tribute of coffee, now stop trying to steal mouthfuls when I’m not looking_.

The cuddles are nice, though Jensen misses the animal-skin jacket, which has not yet reappeared from the depths of Jared’s closet. The food is excellent—once, from his position laid across Jared’s shoulders, Jensen even manages to seize an entire steak right out of the pan before it can be over-cooked. It’s delicious. As he’s eating it, he reflects rather guiltily that Jared needs food too. He’s a big fellow, he probably requires a _lot_ of food. But the man himself seems more concerned that Jensen will burn his mouth (Jared, _dragon_. Fire-breather here!) than anything, and he happily gets another steak out of the fridge. This time, though, he puts a cover on the pan.

The only annoyance, really, is that Jensen’s ability to get the human to do his bidding doesn’t seem to extend to the provision of fine spirits and precious metals. Which makes it rather difficult for Jensen to do anything but continue being scaly and non-verbal.

***

Jared’s going out for his regular weekly Chad-mandated Night of Gay Debauchery (Registered Trademark of Mm-Mm Chad Corporation) Friday evening when his stray dragon (gee, it’s weird how non-weird that sounds!) decides to kick up a fuss. First, he seems to want to make glorious dragon love to Jared’s favourite leather jacket. Then he starts biting and flailing and chirping disapprovingly every time Jared tries to put him in the terrarium so he can head for the damn door. By the fifth bite, it’s getting old. This one, he notes, actually drew blood.

“Fuck, dude, what do you _want_?” Possibly he ruins the effect of very grown-up annoyance by sucking his bleeding finger at this point.

The dragon freezes. Then, quite deliberately, it attempts to climb into his pocket. It’s significantly too big for that, but Jared gets the idea.

“You want to come with me? To the Fancy Fleshpot?”

The dragon gives a very definite nod. Jared’s now three-quarters convinced that it can understand at least some of what he says.

“Okay. I’ll find you a bag or something to hide in. And seriously, man, you are gonna want to hide. People will go nuts if they see a dragon.”

He grabs the sturdy backpack he uses for hikes and other adventures, takes out the empty water bottle, spare socks, and miscellaneous camera gear it contains, then holds it open for the dragon to climb into. It gives him a sour look, as if suddenly suspecting that he’d tie it up and leave it in there while he went out, but then dives in headfirst, long iridescent tail coiling in after. Jared hears rustling, then crunching, and guesses he must have left some trail mix in there. Hopes it hadn’t gone off or anything. He pulls the flap over but doesn’t clip it closed, shoulders the bag carefully, checks his wallet and phone are still in his pocket, locks his door behind him and heads out front.

Chad’s waiting, engine running, BlueTooth thingy in his ear, having a good-natured argument with someone while working chewing gum obnoxiously. He waves hello without looking, pulls away from the kerb the second Jared’s got the door shut. For Chad, that’s basically solicitous behaviour.

“No way!” Chad’s saying. “Sure, he’s hot, but there’s hot and there’s _hot_ , man, you know?”

Jared doesn’t ask. He learned better long ago.

They stop on the way to the club to pick up a trio of lipsticked, glossy-haired, giggling girls. Jared nods and smiles and makes little attempt to remember their names. Chad likely met them yesterday, will bed at least two of them tonight (gay clubs are a turn-on for straight girls, Chad claims), and Jared won’t be seeing them again. He does commit the faces to short-term memory, though, because he believes in looking out for the people he came with. His backpack chitters softly at him from the footwell, but Jared steadfastly ignores it.

***

Jared isn’t really sure how it happens. He’s parked his ass at the bar with an overpriced scotch and the determination to make it last. The music is thudding through his head and doing anything but making him want to dance. He’s half-heartedly eyeing the bartender, who has some interesting piercings on display, vaguely aware that the dragon in the backpack on his knee has pushed up the top flap just enough to watch the crowd on the dance-floor.

Someone crashes into him. Jared automatically steadies him before he can fall and bang his head on the bar. Glass smashes, scotch spills, the bag falls, and the dragon’s squawk of outrage is just audible above the bass beat.

The guy’s dressed like a twink who’s just won the lottery, Jared notices. The dragon’s head pokes right out. Jared tries to stuff it back down again with his foot, but the dragon isn’t having any of that. He watches in a sort of slow-motion horror as the dragon leaps up onto Jared’s lap only to pounce on the man’s hands, apparently attracted by his multiple shiny rings.

“Fuck, man, what _is_ that?”

Jared opens his mouth but words won’t come. How do you explain away a dragon in your backpack? There isn’t supposed to be any such thing.

The man shakes his hand, but the dragon won’t release the ring he’s caught between his impressive teeth.

“Your goddamn iguana’s a man-eater!”

“Sorry,” Jared assures him, reaching out to pull the offending reptile back. “I’m real sorry. Just—”

There’s a puff of smoke. This wouldn’t be surprising at the Fleshpot, if this was a Tuesday. But it isn’t. So it is. The weight disappears from Jared’s lap. When the smoke clears, there is no sign of a dragon.

There is, however, a naked man close by, glaring at Twinkie who is obliviously caressing his injured knuckle. Well, naked if you don’t count the body paint. Which is pearlescent, white and blue, curling in subtle, strange patterns over the man’s skin. It leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination.

As if the situation with Twinkie wasn’t awkward enough, as if having lost his rescued dragon wasn’t bad enough, as if the look the cute bartender gives him as he starts to clean up the broken glass wasn’t withering enough, now he can’t seem to take his eyes off this complete stranger who is clearly a player in a league to which Jared T. Padelecki could never aspire.

Jared does the sensible thing. He grabs his empty bag and heads for the bathrooms. Then he remembers where he is and heads for somewhere _not_ filled with sweaty writhing people in various states of undress. He keeps an eye out for the dragon as he goes, ever hopeful, but there’s no sign of him. _Damn._ And he thought he’d been taking such great care of the little guy. All that noise and chaos must have scared him, hurt his dragon ears.

He texts Chad from the street outside, lets him know he’s calling it a night and reminding him that someone _sober_ needs to do the driving home. Like your friendly neighbourhood taxi driver. Then he starts walking. He’ll call the club in the morning, ask if anyone found his lost ‘iguana’. Maybe, just maybe…

“This is close to where you found me,” says a voice. It’s a pleasant enough voice.

Jared turns.

It’s bodypaint guy, and he looks a _lot_ more naked without the context of the Fancy Fleshpot around him.

“Can I help you?” It’s probably not a good opening to offer a complete stranger, but he can’t really think of anything else. And his momma said he was always a helpful kind of boy. “Aren’t you cold? Did you leave your stuff back in the club?”

The guy approaches. Jared resolutely does not let his gaze drop below chest level. There’s a swirl of blue around one nipple, patterned like mosaic tiles that gleam metallically in the streetlit night.

“Jensen.”

“Huh?”

“Jensen,” the guy repeats, with the air of exaggerated patience one might use with a small child. “My name. You’ve been wondering what to call me.”

“I dunno, ‘Bodypaint Guy’ was working pretty well for me.”

“Before that,” purrs Jensen, stepping closer. “What is bodypaint?”

Hang on, what? “Bodypaint. You know, what you’re wearing? The _only_ thing you’re wearing?”

Jensen rubs an absent hand over his own torso. Jared’s libido takes far too great an interest, and he stamps irritably on it. “Scales,” he says. “They look different, in this form.”

Jared is just beginning to put together the clues to what he’s sure is an insanity-making puzzle when Jensen yawns—and breathes _fire_. “Um…”

“I required spirits and precious metal in order to transmute myself. You failed to supply them at your place of residence. I assume you didn’t know, though I had hoped Doctor Collins might have informed you. He seemed knowledgeable. For a human. I think he has dealt with our kind before…” He steps closer. “Mmmm, I do like that jacket. May I?” And he settles his hands on Jared’s waist, bends, and begins rubbing his cheek over the leather.

The fact that Jared’s dick is perking up reminds him rather belatedly of their situation. “Dude, we’re gonna get arrested here.” He considers his own clothes unhappily. He dressed for the club; he doesn’t have enough on under his jeans to get away with lending them to Jensen, and neither his shirt nor his jacket is long enough to cover much below the navel. “Any chance you could, uh, get back into the bag? Or does that need, what was it, spirits and—”

“Precious metal. You’ll provide these, back at your home?”

“Sure, I can do that. So how does this work, do you just, like—”

There’s a dainty little puff of smoke, and then there is the dragon again, just as lizard-like as he was this morning. Jared unslings the backpack from his shoulder, crouches down. The dragon tiptoes forward, gives him a stern look, then climbs into the bag and curls tightly around itself, only emerging to lick the back of Jared’s neck as he’s about to hail a cab.

“Shh,” he complains, as his hailing gesture becomes a startled flail and the cab speeds right on by. “Don’t distract me.” The next lick feels distinctly apologetic. “That’s better.”

“ _Hmpfffft,_ ” says the dragon.

***

The watch Jared brings him is old and broken, but Jensen loves it all the same, his dragon’s eyes drawn to its golden metallic shine. He places one reverent foot upon it where the human has laid it down on the kitchen counter, flicks his long tongue out to taste from the shot glass. He reaches inside, hugs himself around his power, and shifts.

Now human-like, he dangles his two legs over the edge of the counter, reaches to lift the glass to his lips. Vodka tastes different with this tongue, though no less delightfully fiery as it makes its way down.

“I, uh, I should get you some clothes.”

“There is no need,” Jensen tells him. “I wish to bathe, if you will permit my use of the facilities.”

“Oh, okay. Sure. Hey, listen, you can take the bed, I’ll crash on the couch.”

Jensen feels his forehead contract. “You do not wish to mate? It has been a long time, but I felt sure I recognised the signals that you found me desirable in this form.”

Jared’s mouth falls open.

“Did you not attend the discotheque tonight for the purpose of meeting potential bed partners?”

The human’s cheeks, Jensen notes, have acquired a faintly pink hue, as if he has lost control of his inward fire. “Well, I…”

Jensen begins to feel he has misjudged the situation most grievously. “You were perhaps only there to ensure the safety of your uncouth acquaintance and his maidens? You are not drawn to the delights of manflesh? Or are you, perhaps, young and a novice in such matters?”

Jared coughs. “Uh, I’m plenty old enough, and plenty gay enough, thanks. _You_ aren’t underage, by the way?”

Jensen puffs out his chest. “This summer I will begin my one hundred and fifty-seventh year.”

“I meant in human years.”

“As did I.” He looks into those big, round-pupilled human eyes, and tires of this conversation. Reaches out, takes hold of Jared’s shoulders, pulls him in. Jared’s lips are cool and smooth, and after a moment’s stillness he moans and presses into the kiss.

Afterwards, Jensen leaves a stunned looking Jared standing stupidly in the kitchen and smugly slinks off to revel in the wonderful hot spray of a modern shower fixture.

***

Jared’s pretty sure he’s gone quietly round the twist some time in the last couple weeks and somehow no one’s noticed, not even him. Because, seriously, _dragons_? Intelligent, friendly dragons, who turn into drop-dead-gorgeous naked dragon men? Gorgeous _hot, naked_ dragon men who want to have sex with him? When did he get this lucky?

But the Jensen who emerges from the bathroom, ‘scales’ glistening as if freshly painted, damp hair artlessly spiked, looks very, very real. Feels very real when he bounces on top of Jared on the bed and pins him there. His tongue is hot, so hot, when it traces a line from the hollow of Jared’s throat up over his adam’s apple to the point of his chin. There, Jensen _nibbles_. It’s weird how that’s sexy despite reminding him pretty forcefully of what Jensen used to do last week when he seemed just to be a normal—if rare—animal and not a sentient, speaking creature possessing what Jared hazards is human-level intelligence at least.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry I kept you in a cage. I didn’t know you were—you know, not just a lizardbrain.”

Jensen laughs. It’s recognisable as the _snarksnark_ noise he used to make in his other form sometimes. “It was comfortable. I liked the lamp. Not so fond of the roof, though. Or the lack of treasure and rum. But you took excellent care of me, as far as your knowledge permitted.”

The scales are surprisingly soft. Smooth, too. Almost flower-petal-esque, only not so easily damaged. Jared explores the swirling patterns they make, tracing them out with his fingertips. Jensen murmurs approval, then begins nibbling a path from Jared’s shoulder to his ear. Which he bites.

“Fuck!” He pushes Jensen’s head away so he can clutch at his poor injured lobe.

“Sorry,” Jensen says, rubbing sheepishly at the back of his neck. “Too rough?”

“Yeeeeah. Unless I _wanted_ to start wearing an earring.”

“Ooh,” Jensen murmurs, something like longing in his tone. “Would you?”

“ _Dragons_. It’s the shiny, right? You want the shiny?”

“That, and the convenient access to precious metals. Though I was planning to st—uh, borrow—your watch for that purpose. The band is stretchy; I think I can wear it around my neck in my other form.”

“You’re welcome to it,” Jared tells him, oddly touched. “Now back to the sex?”

***

**Epilogue:**

Jared wasn’t expecting that Jensen would mark their fifth anniversary by, well, leaving. Especially when he was so settled and apparently happy in his new career as a manufacturing jeweller. But Jensen had been all ‘I must go’, and he wouldn’t say why. Just that he loved his Jared and he’d be back and it was nothing to worry about.

And then Jared hadn’t heard from him. For, like, months.

It sucked.

He was so miserable even Chad eventually noticed.

Which is how come Jared comes slamming back into his apartment late one night, annoyed, ears ringing, and feeling quite content never to be dragged out to Chad’s idea of a hopping nightspot ever again.

“Shush!” comes a very familiar voice from the couch.

Jared jumps, hand flying to his mesh-shirted chest. “Jen? Oh, man, you gave me a fright.”

Jensen’s head appears over the back of the couch. “Get over here,” he whispers. “I have something to show you.”

So Jared puts down his wallet and keys and heads over there. Rounds the couch to find Jensen all stretched out and… cradling a large, sparkly, gold-and-purple egg to his stomach.

“Um. Don’t tell me you laid an egg. I thought—”

“Of course I didn’t.” He strokes the egg. “I’m not equipped to lay eggs. But it was a mating year, and it is traditional for male and female unmated dragons to pair up long enough to produce a clutch. They then divide the eggs and go their separate ways. Marika laid two eggs. She kept the female. I thought, since you and I had discussed adoption, that you might be agreeable—”

Jared’s breathing too hard, too fast. It seems to take a huge effort to speak. “You went out and got us a kid? A baby dragon?” He needs to sit down. The armchair is too far away. He plonks down onto the coffee table, ignores its ominous creak.

“Our son,” Jensen says, taking Jared’s hand and leading it to the egg. It feels warm, seems somehow to buzz beneath his fingertips. “If you want.”

Jared can’t find the words, so he just nods as hard as humanly possible.

Jensen seems to get it, though, because a slow smile spreads across his face. “Well, then. It would be traditional for you to prepare a nest for the egg.” There’s something in the way his eyes scan back and forth across Jared’s face that suggest this is important, some kind of test.

“Sure, okay,” he thinks aloud. “So, soft things and warm things, maybe on the armchair in our room? I think that should be safe. And maybe we could wrap it in my leather jacket, the one you like?”

Jensen’s sigh is nostalgic. “That would be perfect.”

Jared leans over, mindful of the egg, and presses a soft kiss to his lips.

 

 

***END***


End file.
